these theorists, and in the works which they chose for translation the
intellectual was generally stronger than the artistic appeal. Their
translations, however, showed a variety peculiarly characteristic of the
English Renaissance. Interest in classical scholarship was nearly always
associated with interest in the new religious doctrines, and hence the
new theories of translation were attached impartially either to
renderings of the classics or to versions of contemporary theological
works, valuable on account of the close, careful thinking which they
contained, as contrasted with the more superficial charm of writings
like those of Guevara. An Elizabethan scholar, indeed, might have
hesitated if asked which was the more important, the Greek or Latin
classic or the theological treatise. Nash praises Golding
indiscriminately "for his industrious toil in Englishing Ovid's
_Metamorphoses_, besides many other exquisite editions of divinity
turned by him out of the French tongue into our own."[340] Golding
himself, translating one of these "exquisite editions of divinity,"
Calvin's _Sermons on the Book of Job_, insists so strongly on the
"substance, importance, and travail"[341] which belong to the work that
one is ready to believe that he ranked it higher than any of his other
translations. Nor was the contribution from this field to be despised.
Though the translation of the Bible was an isolated task which had few
relations with other forms of translation, what few affiliations it
developed were almost entirely with theological works like those of
Erasmus, Melanchthon, Calvin, and to the translation of such writings
Biblical standards of accuracy were transferred. On the other hand the
translator of Erasmus or Calvin was likely to have other and very
different interests, which did much to save him from a narrow pedantry.
Nicholas Udall, for example, who had a large share in the translation of
Erasmus's _Paraphrase on the New Testament_, also translated parts of
Terence and is best known as the author of _Ralph Roister Doister_.
Thomas Norton, who translated Calvin's _Institution of the Christian
Religion_, has been credited with a share in _Gorboduc_.
It was towards the middle of the century that these translators began to
formulate their views, and probably the decades immediately before and
after the accession of Elizabeth were more fruitful in theory than any
other part of the period. Certain centers of influence may be rather
clearly distinguished. In contemporary references to the early part of the
century Sir Thomas Elyot and Sir Thomas More are generally coupled together
as authorities on translation. Slightly later St. John's College,
Cambridge, "that most famous and fortunate nurse of all learning,"[342]
exerted through its masters and students a powerful influence. Much of the
fame of the college was due to Sir John Cheke, "a man of men," according to
Nash, "supernaturally traded in all tongues." Cheke is associated, in one
way and another, with an odd variety of translations--Nicholls' translation
of a French version of _Thucydides_,[343] Hoby's _Courtier_,[344] Wilson's
_Demosthenes_[345]--suggesting something of the range of his sympathies.
Though little of his own comment survives, the echoes of his opinions in
Ascham's _Schoolmaster_ and the preface to Wilson's _Demosthenes_ make
one suspect that his teaching was possibly the strongest force at work
at the time to produce higher standards for translation. As the century
progressed Sir William Cecil, in his early days a distinguished student
at St. John's and an intimate associate of Cheke's, maintained, in spite
of the cares of state, the tradition of his college as the patron of
various translators and the recipient of numerous dedications prefixed
to their productions. It is from the midcentury translators, however,
that the most distinctive comment emanates. United in various
combinations, now by religious sympathies, now by a common enthusiasm
for learning, now by the influence of an individual, they form a group
fairly homogeneous so far as their theories of translation are
concerned, appreciative of academic correctness, but ready to consider
also the claims of the reader and the nature of the vernacular.
The earlier translators, Elyot and More, have left small but significant
comment on methods. More's expression of theory was elicited by
Tyndale's translation of the Bible; of the technical difficulties
involved in his own translation of _The Life of Pico della Mirandola_ he
says nothing. Elyot is one of the first translators to approach his task
from a new angle. Translating from Greek to English, he observed, like
Tyndale, the differences and correspondences between the two languages.
His _Doctrinal of Princes_ was translated "to the intent only that I
would assay if our English tongue might receive the quick and proper
sentences pronounced by the Greeks."[346] The experiment had interesting
results. "And in this experience," he continues, "I have found (if I be
not much deceived) that the form of speaking, called in Greek and also
in English _Phrasis_, much nearer approacheth to that which at this day
we use, than the order of the Latin tongue. I mean in the sentences and
not in the words."
A peculiarly good exponent of the new vitality which was taking
possession of the theory of translation is Nicholas Udall, whose
opinions have been already cited in this chapter. The versatility of
intellect evinced by the list of his varied interests, dramatic,
academic, religious, showed itself also in his views regarding
translation. In the various prefaces and dedications which he
contributed to the translation of Erasmus's _Paraphrase_ he touches on
problems of all sorts--stipends for translators, the augmentation of the
English vocabulary, sentence structure in translation, the style of
Erasmus, the individual quality in the style of every writer--but all
these questions he treats lightly and undogmatically. Translation,
according to Udall, should not conform to iron rules. He is not
disturbed by the diversity of methods exhibited in the _Paraphrase_.
"Though every translator," he writes, "follow his own vein in turning
the Latin into English, yet doth none willingly swerve or dissent from
the mind and sense of his author, albeit some go more near to the words
of the author, and some use the liberty of translating at large, not so
precisely binding themselves to the strait interpretation of every word
and syllable."[347] In his own share of the translation Udall inclines
rather to the free than to the literal method. He has not been able
"fully to discharge the office of a good translator,"[348] partly
because of the ornate quality of Erasmus's style, partly because he
wishes to be understood by the unlearned. He does not feel so scrupulous
as he would if he were translating the text of Scripture, though even in
the latter connection he is guilty of the heretical opinion that "if the
translators were not altogether so precise as they are, but had some
more regard to expressing of the sense, I think in my judgment they
should do better." It will be noted, however, that Udall's advocacy of
freedom is an individual reaction, not the repetition of a formula. The
preface to his translation of the _Apophthegmes_ of Erasmus helps to
redress the balance in favor of accuracy. "I have labored," he says, "to
discharge the duty of a translator, that is, keeping and following the
sense of my book, to interpret and turn the Latin into English, with as
much grace of our vulgar tongue as in my slender power and knowledge
hath lain."[349] The rest of the preface shows that Udall, in his
concern for the quality of the English, did not make "following the
sense" an excuse for undue liberties. Writing "with a regard for young
scholars and students, who get great value from comparing languages," he
is most careful to note such slight changes and omissions as he has made
in the text. Explanations and annotations have been printed "in a small
letter with some directory mark," and "any Greek or Latin verse or word,
whereof the pith and grace of the saying dependeth" has been retained, a
sacrifice to scholarship for which he apologizes to the unlearned
reader.
Nicholas Grimald, who published his translation of Cicero's _Offices_
shortly after the accession of Elizabeth, is much more dogmatic in his
rules for translation than is Udall. "Howbeit look," runs the preface,
"what rule the Rhetorician gives in precept, to be observed of an Orator
in telling of his tale: that it be short, and without idle words: that
it be plain, and without dark sense: that it be provable, and without
any swerving from the truth: the same rule should be used in examining
and judging of translation. For if it be not as brief as the very
author's text requireth, what so is added to his perfect style shall
appear superfluous, and to serve rather to the making of some paraphrase
or commentary. Thereto if it be uttered with inkhorn terms, and not with
usual words: or if it be phrased with wrested or far-fetched forms of
speech, not fair but harsh, not easy but hard, not natural but violent
it shall seem to be. Then also, in case it yield not the meaning of the
author, but either following fancy or misled by error forsakes the true
pattern, it cannot be approved for a faithful and sure interpretation,
which ought to be taken for the greatest praise of all."[350] In
Grimald's insistence on a brevity equal to that of the original and in
his unmodified opposition to innovations in vocabulary, there is
something of pedantic narrowness. His criticism of Cicero is not
illuminating and his estimate, in this connection, of his own
accomplishment is amusingly complacent. In Cicero's work "marvellous is
the matter, flowing the eloquence, rich the store of stuff, and full
artificial the enditing: but how I," he continues, "have expressed the
same, the more the book be perused, the better it may chance to appear.
None other translation in our tongue have I seen but one, which is of
all men of any learning so well liked that they repute it and consider
it as none: yet if ye list to compare this somewhat with that nothing,
peradventure this somewhat will serve somewhat the more." Yet in spite
of his limitations Grimald has some breadth of outlook. A work like his
own, he believes, can help the reader to a greater command of the
vernacular. "Here is for him occasion both to whet his wit and also to
file his tongue. For although an Englishman hath his mother tongue and
can talk apace as he learned of his dame, yet is it one thing to tittle
tattle, I wot not how, or to chatter like a jay, and another to bestow
his words wisely, orderly, pleasantly, and pithily." The writer knows
men who could speak Latin "readily and well-favoredly, who to have done
as much in our language and to have handled the same matter, would have
been half black." Careful study of this translation will help a man "as
well in the English as the Latin, to weigh well properties of words,
fashions of phrases, and the ornaments of both."
Another interesting document is the preface entitled _The Translator to
the Reader_ which appeared in 1578 in the fourth edition of Thomas
Norton's translation of Calvin's _Institution of the Christian
Religion_. The opinions which it contains took shape some years earlier,
for the author expressly states that the translation has not been
changed at all from what it was in the first impression, published in
1561, and that the considerations which he now formulates governed him
in the beginning. Norton, like Grimald, insists on extreme accuracy in
following the original, but he bases his demand on a truth largely
ignored by translators up to this time, the essential relationship
between thought and style. He makes the following surprisingly
penetrative comment on the nature and significance of Calvin's Latin
style: "I considered how the author thereof had of long time purposely
labored to write the same most exactly, and to pack great plenty of
matter in small room of words, yea and those so circumspectly and
precisely ordered, to avoid the cavillations of such, as for enmity to
the truth therein contained, would gladly seek and abuse all advantages
which might be found by any oversight in penning of it, that the
sentences were thereby become so full as nothing might well be added
without idle superfluity, and again so nighly pared that nothing might
be minished without taking away some necessary substance of matter
therein expressed. This manner of writing, beside the peculiar terms of
arts and figures, and the difficulty of the matters themselves, being
throughout interlaced with the schoolmen's controversies, made a great
hardness in the author's own book, in that tongue wherein otherwise he
is both plentiful and easy, insomuch that it sufficeth not to read him
once, unless you can be content to read in vain." Then follows Norton's
estimate of the translator's duty in such a case: "I durst not presume
to warrant myself to have his meaning without his words. And they that
wot well what it is to translate well and faithfully, specially in
matters of religion, do know that not only the grammatical construction
of words sufficeth, but the very building and order to observe all
advantages of vehemence or grace, by placing or accent of words, maketh
much to the true setting forth of a writer's mind." Norton, however, did
not entirely forget his readers. He approached his task with "great
doubtfulness," fully conscious of the dilemma involved. "If I should
follow the words, I saw that of necessity the hardness of the
translation must needs be greater than was in the tongue wherein it was
originally written. If I should leave the course of words, and grant
myself liberty after the natural manner of my own tongue, to say that in
English which I conceived to be his meaning in Latin, I plainly
perceived how hardly I might escape error." In the end he determined "to
follow the words so near as the phrase of the English tongue would
suffer me." Unhappily Norton, like Grimald and like some of the
translators of the Bible, has an exaggerated regard for brevity. He
claims that "if the English book were printed in such paper and letter
as the Latin is, it should not exceed the Latin in quantity," and that
students "shall not find any more English than shall suffice to construe
the Latin withal, except in such few places where the great difference
of the phrases of the languages enforced me." Yet he believes that his
version is not unnecessarily hard to understand, and he urges readers
who have found it difficult to "read it ofter, in which doing you shall
find (as many have confessed to me that they have found by experience)
that those things which at first reading shall displease you for
hardness shall be found so easy as so hard matter would suffer, and for
the most part more easy than some other phrase which should with greater
looseness and smoother sliding away deceive your understanding."
Thomas Wilson, who dedicated his translation of Demosthenes to Sir
William Cecil in 1570, links himself with the earlier group of
translators by his detailed references to Cheke. Like Norton he is very
conscious of the difficulty of translation. "I never found in my life,"
he writes of this piece of work, "anything so hard for me to do." "Such
a hard thing it is," he adds later, "to bring matter out of any one
language into another." A vigorous advocate of translation, however, he
does not despise his own tongue. "The cunning is no less," he declares,
"and the praise as great in my judgment, to translate anything
excellently into English, as into any other language," and he hopes
that, if his own attempt proves unsuccessful, others will make the
trial, "that such an orator as this is might be so framed to speak our
tongue as none were able to amend him, and that he might be found to be
most like himself." Wilson comes to his task with all the equipment that
the period could afford; his preface gives evidence of a critical
acquaintance with numerous Latin renderings of his author. From Cheke,
however, he has gained something more valuable, the power to feel the
vital, permanent quality in the work of Demosthenes. Cheke, he says,
"was moved greatly to like Demosthenes above all others, for that he
saw him so familiarly applying himself to the sense and understanding of
the common people, that he sticked not to say that none ever was more
fit to make an Englishman tell his tale praiseworthily in any open
hearing either in parliament or in pulpit or otherwise, than this only
orator was." Wilson shares this opinion and, representative of the
changing standards of Elizabethan scholarship, prefers Demosthenes to
Cicero. "Demosthenes used a plain, familiar manner of writing and
speaking in all his actions," he says in his _Preface to the Reader_,
"applying himself to the people's nature and to their understanding
without using of proheme to win credit or devising conclusion to move
affections and to purchase favor after he had done his matters.... And
were it not better and more wisdom to speak plainly and nakedly after
the common sort of men in few words, than to overflow with unnecessary
and superfluous eloquence as Cicero is thought sometimes to do." "Never
did glass so truly represent man's face," he writes later, "as
Demosthenes doth show the world to us, and as it was then, so is it now,
and will be so still, till the consummation and end of all things shall
be." From Cheke Wilson has received also training in methods of
translation and especially in the handling of the vernacular. "Master
Cheke's judgment was great," he recalls, "in translating out of one
tongue into another, and better skill he had in our English speech to
judge of the phrases and properties of words and to divide sentences
than any one else that I have known. And often he would English his
matters out of the Latin or Greek upon the sudden, by looking of the
book only, without reading or construing anything at all, an usage right
worthy and very profitable for all men, as well for the understanding of
the book, as also for the aptness of framing the author's meaning, and
bettering thereby their judgment, and therewithal perfecting their
tongue and utterance of speech." In speaking of his own methods,
however, Wilson's emphasis is on his faithfulness to the original. "But
perhaps," he writes, "whereas I have been somewhat curious to follow
Demosthenes' natural phrase, it may be thought that I do speak over bare
English. Well I had rather follow his vein, the which was to speak
simply and plainly to the common people's understanding, than to
overflourish with superfluous speech, although I might thereby be
counted equal with the best that ever wrote English."
Though now and then the comment of these men is slightly vague or
inconsistent, in general they describe their methods clearly and fully.
Other translators, expressing themselves with less sureness and
adequacy, leave the impression that they have adopted similar
standards. Translations, for example, of Calvin's _Commentary on
Acts_[351] and Luther's _Commentary on Galatians_[352] are described on
their title pages as "faithfully translated" from the Latin. B. R.'s
preface to his translation of Herodotus, though its meaning is somewhat
obscured by rhetoric, suggests a suitable regard for the original.
"Neither of these," he writes of the two books which he has completed,
"are braved out in their colors as the use is nowadays, and yet so
seemly as either you will love them because they are modest, or not
mislike them because they are not impudent, since in refusing idle
pearls to make them seem gaudy, they reject not modest apparel to cause
them to go comely. The truth is (Gentlemen) in making the new attire, I
was fain to go by their old array, cutting out my cloth by another
man's measure, being great difference whether we invent a fashion of
our own, or imitate a pattern set down by another. Which I speak not to
this end, for that myself could have done more eloquently than our
author hath in Greek, but that the course of his writing being most
sweet in Greek, converted into English loseth a great part of his
grace."[353] Outside of the field of theology or of classical prose
there were translators who strove for accuracy. Hoby, profiting
doubtless by his association with Cheke, endeavored in translating _The
Courtier_ "to follow the very meaning and words of the author, without
being misled by fantasy, or leaving out any parcel one or other."[354]
Robert Peterson claims that his version of Della Casa's _Galateo_ is
"not cunningly but faithfully translated."[355] The printer of Carew's
translation of Tasso explains: "In that which is done, I have caused
the Italian to be printed together with the English, for the delight
and benefit of those gentlemen that love that most lively language. And
thereby the learned reader shall see how strict a course the translator
hath tied himself in the whole work, usurping as little liberty as any
whatsoever as ever wrote with any commendations."[356] Even translators
who do not profess to be overfaithful display a consciousness of the
existence of definite standards of accuracy. Thomas Chaloner, another
of the friends of Cheke, translating Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_ for
"mean men of baser wits and condition," chooses "to be counted a scant
true interpreter." "I have not pained myself," he says, "to render word
for word, nor proverb for proverb ... which may be thought by some
cunning translators a deadly sin."[357] To the author of the _Menechmi_
the word "translation" has a distinct connotation. The printer of the
work has found him "very loath and unwilling to hazard this to the
curious view of envious detraction, being (as he tells me) neither so
exactly written as it may carry any name of translation, nor such
liberty therein used as that he would notoriously differ from the
poet's own order."[358] Richard Knolles, whose translation of Bodin's
_Six Books of a Commonweal_ was published in 1606, employed both the
French and the Latin versions of the treatise, and describes himself as
on this account "seeking therein the true sense and meaning of the
author, rather than precisely following the strict rules of a nice
translator, in observing the very words of the author."[359] The
translators of this later time, however, seldom put into words theories
so scholarly as those formulated earlier in the period, when, even
though the demand for accuracy might sometimes be exaggerated, it was
nevertheless the result of thoughtful discrimination. There was some
reason why a man like Gabriel Harvey, living towards the end of
Elizabeth's reign, should look back with regret to the time when
England produced men like Cheke and his contemporaries.[360]